2025 Qatar Grand Prix - Lusail, Nov 28 - 30

[basti313]

It wasn't eve a dominant car. It was a faster car. Earlier in the year. Nowadays depending how set-ups turn out it's either slightly faster or slightly slower than the Red Bull.



The last time McLaren was dominant was in the 80s. The last time an F1 car was dominant was in 2023, the Red Bull.

Strange comment. McLaren owned completely the first half of the season until Monza. With two good drivers and decent strategies, this could have been only 1-2 finishes excluding Kanada and even in Kanada one needs to ask the question what would have been possible without fumbling Q3.
Same, not only faster, but dominant pace they held in Maxico, Brazil and Qatar, but fumbled with at least one car in all of these. Especially Qatar showed this in the first stint, they gapped the competition on older tires by a large margin.

I think it is simply wrong to talk down this car. This is clearly one of the best cars in F1 history, clearly the best of this rule set.

I think the McLaren car has no weaknesses with how well-balanced it is. Even the RB19 had weaknesses and was simply off pace at Singapore. Not a single race did the McLaren car not have pace to at least get a P2.

Yes, I agree with that. But that goes more into the "fastest car" discussion. I think the sign of utter dominance is if you can finish the races easily 1-2 and just limit your pace by what is needed like Lando did in Mex.
The 23 RedBull in this regard is interesting. First half of the season it was dominant (and/or had no competition, first 8 races we had an Aston 7 times on the podium!?!), second half it reached a point where Perez could not drive it anymore. Complete difference to today, where they drive the McLaren at maximum pace without a single wobble.

[Badger]

I’d love to see a post summer break table of F1 points.

How McLaren have effectively thrown it away (the haven’t as Norris likely to be WDC in AD) but the amount of errors, strategy and team decisions has cost him wrapping the WDC up about 4 races prior.

-309 OP
-275 LN
-205 MV
-185 GR

Max has outscored OP and LN by 108 and 58 points respectively... in 8 races... against a dominant car.

It wasn't eve a dominant car. It was a faster car. Earlier in the year. Nowadays depending how set-ups turn out it's either slightly faster or slightly slower than the Red Bull.

Yeah, that’s just insane. Especially given the dominance of the Mclaren.

The last time McLaren was dominant was in the 80s. The last time an F1 car was dominant was in 2023, the Red Bull.

It's a dominant car vs a dominant driver, it evens out the results slightly. McLaren could have had 20+ wins this year if their execution was top notch from the drivers and strategy.

[ToffeeTyres]

Lando and Piastri just aren’t top tier drivers. They could have wrapped the drivers championship way earlier. Pit strategy has been rubbish they always have been rubbish. Their car has been dominant and compliant on nearly if not every race track they’ve been at. The drivers just aren’t great they should have won way more

[Artur Craft]

Unlucky? He's driving an MCL39.

So what? Every season someone gets to drive the best car and Mclaren is nowhere near as dominant as Mercedes, for instance, from 2014-2021. Without his car failure on Netherlands, Lando would have been champion already. Oscar would be a horrible champion, he doesn´t deserve it

He did far more than Norris this year for it, Norris was just blundering around for 3/4 of the season...
Not to say that, I'm particularly impressed by either of them. I think there are 5-6 better drivers on the grid.

So, Oscar "did far more" and Norris is still far ahead despite a car failure that Piastri didn´t have.

I´m still not quite sure why there is so much "love" for Piastri and/or hatred for Norris. Anyway, I´m happy he has the lowest chances

[fourmula1]

How do you not give 100% priority to your leading WDC driver with 2-3 races left with the 2nd/3rd tied for points. The money and advertising from a WDC....if they lose it would be a massive leadership failure. Mclaren getting hate for not being fair to their drivers is insanity. No other team has tried to be this "fair" in recent history. If they prioritized one driver all season it would have been case closed....domination of points. Instead they split the points evenly between their drivers. Its just crazy from a business point of view.

[ToffeeTyres]

He did far more than Norris this year for it, Norris was just blundering around for 3/4 of the season...
Not to say that, I'm particularly impressed by either of them. I think there are 5-6 better drivers on the grid.

I´m still not quite sure why there is so much "love" for Piastri and/or hatred for Norris. Anyway, I´m happy he has the lowest chances

Norris isn’t very likeable that could be why. If he wins this years drivers championship it will go to his head guarantee it. Piastri wouldn’t change what you see is what you get Norris seems fake big headed and with the car that he has should already be champion but he’s just not top tier neither is Piastri. Would prefer Piastri to win it. Max and Lando take each other out at the finale

[basti313]

So, Oscar "did far more" and Norris is still far ahead despite a car failure that Piastri didn´t have.

I think it might be the trajectory: From a rookie year he developed upwards to delivering really nice, solid qualifying results and clearly solved/improved his tire wear issues.
He was also just unlucky in Oz, that he got stuck and Lando did not. Taking this away, Oscar showed a very good first half of the season, impressive, while Lando did not impress at all in my point of view.
Oscar just could not handle wind and low grip.

I´m still not quite sure why there is so much "love" for Piastri and/or hatred for Norris. Anyway, I´m happy he has the lowest chances

Well, Norris feels like Button in the Brawn. Just lucky to be a very good Nr2 driver sitting in the fastest car without a Nr1 driver next to him. So I totally get the point of "love" for the underdog in this scenario.

[Artur Craft]

How do you not give 100% priority to your leading WDC driver with 2-3 races left with the 2nd/3rd tied for points. The money and advertising from a WDC....if they lose it would be a massive leadership failure. Mclaren getting hate for not being fair to their drivers is insanity. No other team has tried to be this "fair" in recent history. If they prioritized one driver all season it would have been case closed....domination of points. Instead they split the points evenly between their drivers. Its just crazy from a business point of view.

Fully agree. Oscar´s fans are pushing this narrative of Mclaren favouring Norris but they have been, actually , quite fair to both. Isn´t that what people were complaining about when Ferrari favoured Schumacher, Alonso and Vettel or Mercedes with Hamilton?!

[zeph]

While I believe McLaren are sincere about their Fairness Doctrine, in practice it has turned out that Norris has been the beneficiary more often than not, whereas Piastri has mostly been hindered by it.

Other than Hungary '24, name one instance where Piastri benefited from the Papaya Rules?

[basti313]

How do you not give 100% priority to your leading WDC driver with 2-3 races left with the 2nd/3rd tied for points. The money and advertising from a WDC....if they lose it would be a massive leadership failure. Mclaren getting hate for not being fair to their drivers is insanity. No other team has tried to be this "fair" in recent history. If they prioritized one driver all season it would have been case closed....domination of points. Instead they split the points evenly between their drivers. Its just crazy from a business point of view.

Fully agree. Oscar´s fans are pushing this narrative of Mclaren favouring Norris but they have been, actually , quite fair to both. Isn´t that what people were complaining about when Ferrari favoured Schumacher, Alonso and Vettel or Mercedes with Hamilton?!

Well, Mercedes with Ham and Ros was fair as well. RedBull with Vet and Web also, up till the point where they also made a farce out of it with Multi 21. The problem is the same with papaya, that they do not let them race, but try to micromanage.

[search]

Montoya was laughing pretty hard yesterday when asked by German Sky if he would have accepted papaya-like rules. "Hell no!"

[Raleigh]

While I believe McLaren are sincere about their Fairness Doctrine, in practice it has turned out that Norris has been the beneficiary more often than not, whereas Piastri has mostly been hindered by it.

Other than Hungary '24, name one instance where Piastri benefited from the Papaya Rules?

Not so much who benefits, 90% of the time Papaya Rules screws over one or both drivers for no good reason.

More like who has suffered more because of Papaya Rules.

[basti313]

While I believe McLaren are sincere about their Fairness Doctrine, in practice it has turned out that Norris has been the beneficiary more often than not, whereas Piastri has mostly been hindered by it.

Other than Hungary '24, name one instance where Piastri benefited from the Papaya Rules?

Not so much who benefits, 90% of the time Papaya Rules screws over one or both drivers for no good reason.

More like who has suffered more because of Papaya Rules.

The team.

It is a bit the question what is this "papaya rules". The old "papaya rules" would have stopped them from racing in Oz, closing the deal already for Oscar.
But maybe these are not even applicable if they just drive against each other. If we just look at points lost by stupid strategy and assume, that Monza would not have worked with even splitting the strategy and not sure on the strategy error in Canada, then about 10 points were lost by not splitting strategies. Could have ended much worse here in Qatar, for example if Ant held his position in the second stint.

[CHT]

One of the most nail biting race of the reason from start to finish. Without the 25 lap tire limit, the race would have been less exciting.
Lap 7 SC pit stop was timed to perfection with 25 + 25 to complete the race, not a lap short or extra.
Mclaren thought by not pitting, they have the soft tire option to play, but it was hard that really deliver on this track.

Flawless drive from Max and its situation like this that he always deliver. Masterclass.

If you bite your nails out of boredom. The race was decided in Lap 7. After that you only had the prescribed pit stops, which everyone did together. And Piastri deciding in desperation to change tires early, when the race was done and dusted already.

From post race critics point of view you can say that the race was decided in Lap 7.

Highlight for the race

RB decision to pit Max at P2 during lap 7 was perfect timing and right call because it makes 7 + 25 + 25 possible. One lap earlier it would have been different.

Mclaren claim to have more flexibility in strategy at Lap 8 or 9, and even Skysports commentors fell for it before it became apparent.

Mclaren 1st pit stop was very close as they were drawing near to the 25 lap tire limit and manage to put Lando ahead of the DRS train. (Something new for 2025)

Lando getting stuck behind Kimi at the end of the race was exciting and that was crucial for the championship.

Alonso spin at lap 42 could have end up with safety car., something Mclaren was hoping for.

Mclaren fans will perhaps see it differently.

[PlatinumZealot]

Williams was strong on a track that rewards good medium-high speed downforce. Very interesting.